9. At-Tawba

Surely God has bought from the faithful their souls and their possessions so that they may have the Garden.... So rejoice in your sale you have made to Him. In the tasting of the recognizers and the path of the elect, this verse is a place for the joy of the friends and a playing field for the secret cores of the sincerely truthful. It is felicitation for the faithful, a fitting felicitation and an appropriate bestowal of eminence. It is a felicitation that is the heart's intimacy and the spirit's message, the ornament of the session and the capital of the indigent, the adornment of tongues and the life of hearts. It is a generous felicitation, from a gen- erous Lord-generous in Essence, generous in attributes, generous in love, generous in caressing, generous in bestowal. The servant himself is bestowed by His bounty, and then He buys back what He Himself be- stowed. He makes the transaction, but He bestows all the profit on the servant and accepts the loss for Himself. This is beautiful doing and generosity, loving kindness and gentleness. In the Torah of Moses God said, " The Garden is My Garden and the possessions My posses- sions. Buy My Garden with My possessions! If you profit, that is yours, and if you lose, that is Mine. O children of Adam, I did not create you to profit from you. I created you only so that you would profit from Me. " In the Beginningless, before the servant's existence, the Lord of the Worlds bought him. He was the seller and the buyer. He Himself sold and He Himself bought. In the Shariah of MuṣṬafā, it is not permitted for the buyer and seller to be the same, unless it be a father, for whom it is permitted on condition of tenderness, negation of suspicion, perfect loving kindness, and fatherly love. What then do you say about someone who is more clement and merciful toward the servant than a father, a God whose loving kindness has no bounds and whose love is greater? Given that it is permitted for a father, it is more appropriate and more complete in the case of the loving Creator. Moreover, the Exalted Lord knew that the servants are bad-tempered, breakers of the Cov- enant, and disloyal to it. He knew that when they reached maturity they would protest. He shut down the road of protest by buying souls full of fault and blight in exchange for a paradise full of joy and blessing. He bought souls full of appetite and trial in exchange for a paradise that has the levels and degrees of proximity to the Real. According to the Shari'ite rules on transactions, when the price given for the bought object is more than it is worth, there is no way to protest. Also, He bought the soul, not the heart. This is because the heart is an endowment to the Real's love and affection, and it is not permitted to buy or sell endowments. Moreover, one of the conditions in transactions is delivery. When something cannot be de- livered, the Shariah does not permit it to be bought and sold. Birds in the sky and fish in the sea cannot be sold, because they cannot be delivered. The state of the servant's heart is exactly the same, and surrendering it is impossible. Thus the Exalted Lord says, " He comes between a man and his heart " [8:24]. …

The repenters, the worshipers, the praisers, the journeyers, the bowers, the prostra- tors, the commanders to the honorable and prohibiters of the improper, the keepers of God's bounds-give good news to the faithful! These are the attributes of the faithful, the conduct of the familiar, and the custom of the friends, who are the hindmost in this world and the foremost in that world. They are the witnesses among the prophets and the interceders for the people, the masters of this world, the lovers of the religion and the beloved of the Real. In this verse their grades are mentioned in a pleasing arrangement. He praises them and bears witness to them, beginning with the lowest of them. First He mentions the lower ones, those who repent and turn back from sin, so that they will not stay ashamed and stricken in heart, but will have new hope. He is saying: " The repenters, those who have turned back from sin, who apologize and are regretful; the worshipers, those who worship, observe the commands, and do service; the praisers, those who praise, extol, and laud; the journeyers, those who go on the hajj, keep the fast, and seek for knowl- edge; the bowers, those who are humble, who serve others, who obey the commands of a pir they have reached; the prostrators, those who say the prayer, who plead, and who put their faces in the dust for the sake of My majesty; the commanders to the honorable, those who command the people to the religion, who call out and invite to obedience, who give good counsel and advise each other; and prohibiters of the improper, the just sultans, those who call to remembrance and who bring the people away from evil and who receive them with spirit and heart. Give good news to the faithful! Give good news to the faithful that whatever shortcoming they may have, My unneediness is equal to it. Whatever may be displeasing from them, My loving kindness is on top of that. Whatever the servant may hope, My bounty is greater than that. Give good news to the faithful that when I chose them, I saw the faults. I did not approve before I had examined the hidden things. With My own unneediness I bought the servants as they are. " Ibn ʿAṬāÌ said, " There is no correct worship without repentance, nor correct repentance with- out praise of Him for the path of repentance that came. Praise is not correct without constant journeying and discipline, nor are these stations and preliminaries correct without constant bowing and prostration. And none of this is correct without commanding the honorable and prohibiting the improper. And none of these are correct without keeping the bounds outwardly and inwardly. The person of faith is someone who has this description, for God says, 'Give good news to the faithful'- those who have this description. " It has come in the traditions that tomorrow on the Day of Resurrection a group from the com- munity will be brought to the place of the Scales. The angels to whom they were entrusted will begin to enumerate their bad acts: " O Lord, these are the breakers of the Covenant, the disloyal, the forgetful, the sinners, the bold, the insolent. " The Exalted Lord will say, " Inasmuch as this is their doing, that …